ABSTRACT
The war soon brought the tension within the German Social Democratic Party to a head. During the war and its aftermath the three strands of the pre-war years—the extreme left, the orthodox centrists and the revisionists—became separate political parties. In the Rhenish-Westphalian Industrial Region the workers’ movements throughout the war were in a state of turbulence. The Majority Socialists and Free Union leaders with their pro-war, though anti-annexationist, attitude and their hopes that support of the establishment would bring social betterment to the workers, waged an uncompromising struggle against left-wing dissent. Pitted against them was the extreme left, Spartacists and syndicalists, who were the sternest critics of the imperialist warmongers and their supporters. Finally there was the USP, not as spectacular as the extreme left but never tiring in its efforts to combat the war and the sell-out of the Majority Socialists.
